A whole new world...

[orehn]

<DIV><FONT size=2>Yesterday I dinged 70...finally-it was the most exciting moment I've had in EQ2 yet, and being that I play on the Nagafen (PvP) server, there has been lots of excitement.  For the last month as I've been trying to juggle being in a T7 raiding guild with getting those last 8 or so levels I was quite disappointed-my damage was low and I pulled tons of aggro on raids.  It was depressing in a lot of ways, I chose swashbuckler because I liked the idea of debuffs + fast refreshing damage; and to see myself be so ineffective was discouraging.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>Well, I am happy to announce that the concern is over-I have finally "arrived on the scene".  Tonight we raided Lyceum and my dps was through the roof!  I was consistantly out-damaging everyone except our Crain Flocking monk, our trigger happy ranger, and our out-of-his-mind wizard.  I honestly think I averaged 700dps.  What I found most shocking though was that I didn't pull aggro once.  No mob turning, no combat rez, not a single negative moment for me.  It's funny but tonight I think I finally fell madly in love with my class.  I don't care that there will always be others who can do more damage then I can; I love being a swashbuckler!</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT size=2>I do have a couple of questions for you all, my apologies for posting them all at once:</FONT></DIV> <OL> <LI><FONT size=2>Is my lack of aggro despite my dps output a farse?  Was I lucky, or skilled perhaps?  Seriously, I mashed my CA's non-stop, ran all of my short-duration buffs upon each refresh, and even laid off on my use of hideaway.  My luck is probably a testiment to our tank's ability to hold aggro, right?</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>What benefit is there to using the direct damage poisons?  Playing on a very young server there just isn't much available, and the number of charges on any DD poison I pick up is amazingly low (4 procs?  wow...).</FONT></LI> <LI><FONT size=2>Weapons...I'm a Wisdom Line swash, so I look for one-handers.  During the marathon "get Leo to 70" session Saturday night I had the pleasure of looting that cleaver from PoA.  How long will I be holding onto that thing?</FONT></LI></OL> <P><FONT size=2>Thank you for taking the time to read this, sorry it's long and filled with questions...I told myself I had to hold off on posting here until I hit 70-I don't know why that is, exactly...</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>Regards,</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>Leopole, Sempiternal</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>Nagafen</FONT></P>

[Snarks]

<blockquote><ol> <li><font size="2">Is my lack of aggro despite my dps output a farse?  Was I lucky, or skilled perhaps?  Seriously, I mashed my CA's non-stop, ran all of my short-duration buffs upon each refresh, and even laid off on my use of hideaway.  My luck is probably a testiment to our tank's ability to hold aggro, right?</font></li></ol>No. Rogues hold the most abilities of any class to deal with aggro. You have poisons + a deaggro stance + a hate xfer (which you shoud use more than not in raids) + a slip + a deaggro .  If a rogue gets aggro, its always his fault. I think this anyways. <ol> <li><font size="2">What benefit is there to using the direct damage poisons?  Playing on a very young server there just isn't much available, and the number of charges on any DD poison I pick up is amazingly low (4 procs?  wow...).</font></li> </ol> When you can, grab some Grandmasters Caustic Poison for damage. This typically accounts for 10-15+ % of my damage, and when i deal 1400 avg dps on raids, that adds up to a LOT of dps. 4 proc poisons are crap, avoid them. <ol> <li><font size="2">Weapons...I'm a Wisdom Line swash, so I look for one-handers.  During the marathon "get Leo to 70" session Saturday night I had the pleasure of looting that cleaver from PoA.  How long will I be holding onto that thing?</font></li> </ol> Ditch that cleaver ASAP. Wisdom line really only becomes worth it when you have gone 4/4/4/8 in wisdom and thrown some points into crits. If you can, grab a fabled 1h slash/pierce with as high DR as you can go for. I believe there are some nice ones on the status merchants. Right hand of the high priestess drops off pantrilla... and this mob spawns quite often. In the best circumstance you can grab a wurmslayer before its nerfed in 1.5 weeks. </blockquote><div></div>

[Dark_Sun]

Can do 1.4k dps quite easy on grp mobs with small hps. Thanx to hurricane and inspiration.Single named mobs are kinda different story though. If the fight is long and you have to joust aoe then we can do good average dps of 800-900, lower than necro or conj, and somewhat on lvl with wiz/bruiser and other classes. But it all highly depends on encounter.Regarding agro... hmm its quite hard to get agro with a good tank. Our deagro buff + 2 deagro spells which i use all the time in combos + deagro poison (which i almost never use since i dont get agro) make quite easy for us do dps/debuffs without any troubles. if you have someone in raid to put agro transfer on, then i would say it will be impossible to get agro.But ofc it all comes with experience, you need to learn how to play with your class, when to use deagro spells, in what order use your CA for max dmg, etc. I know that veteran swashes can do loads of dmg with absolutely no problem, and never get agro. While new unexperienced players often draw agro and do lesser damage.You just need to know how to play your class well. And in time you learn little professional secrets that help you stay alive and perform on top level.

[orehn]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE>snarkteeth wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE>Ditch that cleaver ASAP. Wisdom line really only becomes worth it when you have gone 4/4/4/8 in wisdom and thrown some points into crits. If you can, grab a fabled 1h slash/pierce with as high DR as you can go for. I believe there are some nice ones on the status merchants. Right hand of the high priestess drops off pantrilla... and this mob spawns quite often. In the best circumstance you can grab a wurmslayer before its nerfed in 1.5 weeks.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE> <P><FONT size=2>I guess I'm ahead of the game then; Wisdom 4-4-4-8, and my next AA will go to melee crit in Strength</FONT><FONT size=2>.  I mean to put eight points into crits, beyond that it's still up for discussion.  Unfortunately, the broker is not an option at this time because most people aren't geared to the extent that T7 fabled goes onto the broker.  I'm in one of two Qeyos side Tier 7 guilds, both of which will be going full Free-For-All as Exiles on the 14th of June; and we don't really get along, so they don't sell their gear or masters and we don't sell ours.  In just over a week we will be fighting each other everywhere we go (Exiles can attack each other), so it's going to be really interesting.  </FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>I have to stick with the cleaver until we beat both our rival from Qeynos, and the Freeport guilds that are able to do Pantrilla and Company without problems before I'll have a shot at a Priestess.  You've gotta love fighting over contested spawns...!  Beyond that, the PvP status merchants are meaningless to me too because as soon as I exile I won't be able to use it (SOE isn't allowing Exiles to use anything from their old city-that means bye bye horsies to anyone who bought one).</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>All in all, things are about to get really interesting on Nagafen-I'll keep you all posted.</FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>By the way, debuffs are amazing in pvp. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></FONT></P> <P><FONT size=2>Leopole, Sempiternal--Nagafen</FONT></P> <P><BR></P>

[Rokjin]

<DIV> <DIV>As a note, for raiding, the mental breach poison is amazing. You go through it fast, but essentially it gives you unlimited power, allowing me to easily keep up plenty of DPS and keeping debuffs on for the entire fight.</DIV></DIV>

[Dragonfly28]

I used to use mental breach, seemed no to help a lot on raid mobs though. Switched to Grandmaster caustic now, dps is much higher now, 1300 isnt a rare anymore :p Besides caustic i usually use warding ebb and turgur for debuffs and attack speed decrease while on raids. As potion i try to get essence of tactics up as often as possible. This ofc means run i run out of pwr somewhat faster then otherwise but potion/heart/shard/manastone keep me fed well :p Atm im Str + Int not sure if im going to keep it though, when im in MT group i have no use for int line as i want as much hate as possible transfered to mt, but when not in mt the deaggro stuff can be very usefull. Dual wield a sword for str aa and wurmslayer as weapons. Cheers <span>Onaupu LynxL70 Swashbuckler/L65 TailorUnitySplitpaw</span> <div></div>

[MrDiz]

Its just gonna get better. Your dps is gonna go way over 700 if you have the right classes in raid, and yes aggro is one of the things you will worry least about. If you dont have someone to dump hate on with the Mighty Finger you will still drop hate a lot with hideaway, evade and the proc buff (forgot name). Make sure you adept3 those tho.Youre biggest challenge for avoiding the damage is finding the sweet spot for razor point without getting hit by frontal AE <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />But on the whole although I doubt you will outdps your assassins, and on the few fights you do ranged you wont even show on the parser, you will be a welcome addition to your raid (assuming you dont already have 3 swashys). They wont miss you as much as the brigand if you take a day off, but they will miss you <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[MrDiz]

Oh and on the poison point, I would suggest all three poisons, damage, health leech and power leech. On some fights its nice if you can recover some of the damage you get from AE yourself to ease up the healers job. And if you drop to low power (usually if you die and get rezzed) then you can rapidly "fill up" with a power leechin poison. Gets you back in the game after a death.

[SageGaspar]

<div><blockquote><hr>Dragonfly28 wrote:I used to use mental breach, seemed no to help a lot on raid mobs though. Switched to Grandmaster caustic now, dps is much higher now, 1300 isnt a rare anymore :p Besides caustic i usually use warding ebb and turgur for debuffs and attack speed decrease while on raids. As potion i try to get essence of tactics up as often as possible. This ofc means run i run out of pwr somewhat faster then otherwise but potion/heart/shard/manastone keep me fed well :p Atm im Str + Int not sure if im going to keep it though, when im in MT group i have no use for int line as i want as much hate as possible transfered to mt, but when not in mt the deaggro stuff can be very usefull. Dual wield a sword for str aa and wurmslayer as weapons. Cheers <span>Onaupu LynxL70 Swashbuckler/L65 TailorUnitySplitpaw</span> <div></div><hr></blockquote>I keep up grandmaster's caustic usually and switch over to mental breach if it's a really long fight. As far as Turgur's I'll have to ask again, did they fix it? It's been a while since I tested but last time every time Turgur's proced it overwrote the purple proc, and vice versa. Regardless if you're in a good raid their haste is probably debuffed to the floor anyway, I like my deaggro poison better. And T6 dehaste is always an option until they revamp T6 crafting... next week? Hehe.</div>

[Dragonfly28]

Indeed I always bring mental and vitality breach with me <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> And on the point of deaggro i dont want to use the deaggro poison if i'm in the MT group for reasons i just explained. If im not in MT group it could be usefull, but since i chose int line i think i would prefer to use another "blue" poison as i dont really have aggro problems :p And on the overriding issue of turgur wih purple you have a good point there, i now for sure that the vials are on the same timer. However i havent checked lately if it is actually still overriding the purple one, once its on the mob. But as i said before i'm still doubting to change my AA setup to get even more dps, just not sure how to spread the points then annd if im willing to lose the fd (which comes in very handy for soloing purposes or losing that big fat aggro once hideaway is still down) Cheers <span>Onaupu LynxL70 Swashbuckler/L65 TailorUnitySplitpaw</span> <div></div>